CLASS ACT:  Seena draws poignant stories from the figures she paints.   Photos by Umer Nangiana


By Umer Nangiana

It seems she blots the paper with just a single drop of water colour and it spreads to take the form of a perfectly carved human figure. And when it is a scene from one of her favourite mythological stories, the realism reflects even more brightly in her work.
Painting with water colour and drawing figures with pencil was her first love in art. Seena Anand, an Indian expatriate artist now based in Doha, has only moved closer to her first love even after entering the more modern, technology-assisted field of graphic designing and digital art.
Leave her alone with a pencil and paper, and she will surprise you with a stunning sketch drawn with just a few bold stretched lines — not a single one out of place.    
For proof, have a look at the pencil sketch of a lone tree standing solemn that she drew just randomly. It will pull you to it. “It was just a random idea, nothing planned. I was waiting for somebody and to kill time, I just picked up a paper and pencil and starting drawing. It came out like this,” Seena tells Community at her workplace in Souq Waqif Art Centre where she is seen busy doing her water colour paintings these days.
It was her mother who first introduced her to art. A self-taught and amateur artist, her mother encouraged Seena to draw and paint when she was in school. She got her love of figures from story books — these were the first things she tried.
Having developed a taste in art, Seena went on to pursue a professional diploma in fine arts on completing college. A few years on, she moved to graphic design and digital art. While many artists believe the water colour is difficult to master and it does not remain a popular choice of medium, Seena straight away opted for water colour as her favourite choice of medium right at the beginning of her journey. 
“As forms of art, I love water colour and sketching the best. I don’t know why but the techniques of water colour come naturally to me. I find it easy to do. It is about aptitude I guess,” says the artist, who reckons it was supplemented by rigorous practice at the fine art school where they mainly taught water colour techniques. But oil painting she learnt by herself.
About the bold strokes in her drawings and striking lines in the sketches, she says it comes naturally to her. It has become her style now. The artist believes that people with interest in art need to hone professional techniques as without these it is very difficult to uncover one’s true abilities.
“I did not particularly like my work as an amateur artist though there was certain neatness in it. But after I learnt professional techniques I was able to unleash my true potential and create work that people appreciated. I feel this work of mine is more satisfying and refined,” Seena explains.
She does digital art and graphic design at a pro-level and has managed to attractive many local clients for her designs to be used as posters and cards. Unlike the basics in art, she has learnt the graphic design and digital art all by herself.
Only after learning Photoshop software, she went on to practise on other software such as Corel Paint and used vacuum tablet and pen to create digital portraits and drawings. She says she does not find it difficult now after putting in a lot of hard work in the initial days.
However, she has not completely broken away from water colour painting. The multi-talented artist keeps immersing herself in water colour. “I want to keep my connection with real art alive along with my digital and graphic design work.”
“It also depends on the mood and the environment that you are working in. Here at the art centre, for instance, I am thoroughly enjoying water colour painting and sketching on paper with pencils and I do not even want to touch my computer for the digital work because the environment is such,” she explains.
However, she says once out of this environment and at home when alone she would not touch water colour and instead work on digital.
Painting and digital both are very soothing and relaxing for her. Whenever, she is stressed, she immediately picks up the brush. Seena says she keeps switching between mediums to break the monotony creeping into her work. She divides her time between painting and digital art and graphic design equally.
She has learnt digital and graphic design by taking lessons from YouTube. However, her work is nothing less than the work of a professionally trained artist, if not better.
One does not really need to go to a professional training school, if one has the basics in art to learn digital art or graphics. “For me, it was not difficult as I wanted to learn it. Coming from an art background helps a great deal in learning the digital medium. Basically, it is all the same traditional medium. You are only using paints and all from the computer,” Seena stresses.
In her childhood, she says, she used to read story books particularly the ones on Hindu mythology and they contained a lot of figure drawings. This phase of her reading life developed in her an interest for figure drawing. However, she remains equally interested in pencil sketching.
Pointing to a landscape done with a pencil, Seena reveals it was a real scene from back in her hometown in India and it was done on a big sized paper. She had taken her time completing it as she does not like finishing the work in a single go.
“Though it depends on mood really, normally I do take my time and like to keep working on my projects for a few days, completing them bit by bit,” says the artist.
She sells her work but has not held any exhibitions of her work recently. Most of her ideas revolve around a general interest in figure drawings, realism, portraiture with the mediums being water colour, pencil sketch and digital art.
Seena moved to Qatar a year ago and is doing freelance work these days. Back in India, she also did freelance work as Seena feels a regular job would not leave her with much time to partake her passion for art.
The artist is planning a big solo exhibition here in Doha soon to put up some of her previous works. Most of her art work remains back home. For her future projects, she intends to experiment mixing abstract with realistic work.


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